Nils Ole Hilmer Torvalds[1] (born 7 August 1945) is a Finnish politician who had been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2012 to 2024.

He is a member of the Swedish People's Party of Finland, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

[5] In 2006, Torvalds joined the Swedish People's Party,[4] and the following year he was elected to the post of the third vice chairperson.

[11] However, on 5 July 2012, he was installed in the European Parliament, when Carl Haglund left his seat to join the Katainen Cabinet as Minister of Defence.

[18] In addition to his committee assignments, Torvalds is part of the MEPs Against Cancer group[19] and the European Parliament Intergroup on Traditional Minorities, National Communities and Languages.

[21] In June 2023, Torvalds was the recipient of the Environment and Climate Action Award at The Parliament Magazine's annual MEP Awards[22] Nils' son Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, joked during a LinuxCon keynote on 18 September 2013 that the National Security Agency, the creators of SELinux, wanted a backdoor in the kernel.